More: Worth Listening To

Meta

Dec

7

Leslie Newbigin was a career missionary in India. Upon returning to his native England, he found a different country than he had left. Pluralism and relativism had seeped into the mainstream culture and more and more people thought of Christianity as nice, but certainly not necessary. As he sought to bring the gospel back to his secularized nation this was part of his answer.

Leslie Newbigin points out that the separation experienced between evangelicalism and the so called “social gospel,” is unfortunate and must be reversed.

“If we turn to the Gospels we are bound to note the [undeniable connection] between deeds and words. A very large part of the first three Gospels is occupied with the acts of Jesus – acts of healing, exorcism, of feeding the hungry. And, while in the fourth Godpel there is a larger proportion of teaching, yet most of this teaching is explanatory of something Jesus has done…”

In the Gospels we come upon a new reality. God has shown up in our world. As He is here, he does and says things that represent a new kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. “The presence of that new reality is attested by the mighty works of the Jesus, which in turn calls for the explanation which is the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom.”